While trying to eat Paleo, you might wonder, why can't I eat things that most people view as healthy? Here is a good explanation...take it for what it is worth. Is the info acurate? I assume so. Yet, this matters to varying degree, depending on how hardcore Paleo you want to be. While I try to be as Paleo as possible, I can't help but think a legume ,with all it's phytic acid, can't really be nearly as "damaging" as a pint of ice cream. Just my 2 cents...anyhow, read on...
A blog posting from Practice CrossFit (click here to visit their site)
As we continue to paint the landscape the color “Paleo” we typically encounter speed bumps, road blocks, and u-turns that make moving forward more difficult than necessary. Unfortunately, Paleo followers are often the ones creating the obstacles.
To incorporate items into the Paleo diet that make it appear more ancient usually means the elimination of allergens and addictions. To incorporate items that appear more modern is a way to ensure future generations face the same battles we are fighting today. Basically, keep it simple and become rewarded, add too much variety and complication follows. At the Paleo grocery store it was always 12 items or less.
Chia seeds
Recently I have been presented with numerous question regarding “Chia” and its “Paleoness” or lack thereof. Is Chia Paleo? I don’t know, and I don’t care. Is it harmful? Yes….so don’t eat it.
Our definition of Paleo states we only do what heals. Chia misses that definition by containing phytates, or phytic acid. If you recall from our many “don’t eat grains, legumes, dairy, or soy posts”, phytates are anti-nutrients preventing the absorption of vital minerals.
Chia seeds have been around since the Aztecs but that doesn’t mean they were a staple food among our ancestors. Most they were likely more of a condiment. If Chia seeds are made into a frequent endeavor you could hamper the absorption of calcium, zinc, magnesium and more valuable nutrients within the body.
Chia seeds also contain a more inferior form of Omega 3 (ALA) making for a much more difficult conversion to EPA/DHA, the long-chain fatty acids we so desperately need for day to day survival.
If that wasn’t enough, research also reveals Chia seeds contain a “gel” like substance possibly enhancing such disorders as leaky gut, Celiacs, and Crohn’s.
Quinoa and “grain-like”
Chances are “grain-like” just means grains without the gluten, not without the pain.
Quinoa Buckwheat and some other flour producing non-gluten items are first and for most full of carbohydrates making them potentially hazardous by that testament alone. Without getting into it for the millionth time, eating too many carbs creates its own cascade of problems beginning with insulin resistance that is only enhanced by adding allergens to it…this is almost all of America.
Even if the grain-like substances above did not contain a massive carb overdoes and anti-nutrients, they would still contain “Protease Inhibitors” that react poorly with every human alive.
Grain-like foods and plant seeds would be extinct if they provided unprotected nutrition to animals and humans. The protease inhibitors prevent our insides from breaking down their outsides. Meaning the vital part of the seed makes its way through us intact and undigested. It doesn’t take an expert to realize we are supposed to digest nutrients not borrow them. Especially when that borrowed time puts a beating on our gut, and digestive system.
Other contaminants also reign heavily in Chia, Quinoa, Buckwheat and the like. Items I have only quasi-studied as I lost interest in finding multiple offenders when one criminal is enough. One misplaced card brings down the deck and grain-like decks are just as full of shitty hands as their bigger-grainier brothers.